I see that the first commenter there says: "Another asshole, undoubtedly a Republican/TeaPartier."

My guess is exactly the opposite. What would possess a professor to say something like that? From my long experience with professors, I think it is the left-wing professors who: 1. Feel confident in their own goodness on racial issues, 2. Analyze events in terms of race, 3. Think up "critical theory"-type explanations that explore ideas about racial difference, 4. Imagine that it's clever to express these ideas out loud, and 5. Are capable of making the mistake of thinking that the students will know that they are good people who do racial critique that is supposed to be understood as an attack on white people.

Anyway, the professor in this incident is named Mark Wattier. The school is Murray State University. I haven't checked into what his actual political propensities are or what he really had in mind when he said whatever he said that is being reported the way you see it in the linked article. My motivation to write this post was the commenter's reflexive assumption that Wattier displayed right-wing ideology. That is absurd.

147 comments:

Given the percentages of left-wing/right-wing faculty, doesn't simple math favor a left-wing prof? I mean, I do appreciate the spot-on analysis, but simply to answer the question, the odds are on the prof from the party of "inclusion".

Is that Murray State University in Kentucky? If so, it's a dry county in what was, when I started radio in Paducah years and years back, a very red area. I don't know if that increases or decreases the odds for left or right propensity, but it is state-funded...if that has any bearing.

What a surprise, AA being the biased, unreasonable person that she is immediately moves to pin this guy as a lefty. Murray State is in a conservative region and the school's political leanings tend to go to the right as well. Until we know more, it's impossible to say who he supports politically. In my view, all signs point to the opposite of what Ms. Insanity suggests.

He played basketball at Baylor, likes to ride horses,and his syllabus reflects a social democratic lean, so he is probably leans liberal ,but really I suspect the remarks are more a result of burn-out, and it was time for him to go.

Late students always really peeved me, especially if they are disruptive when they come into class. That is extremely rude to fellow students who are there trying to learn material. Now that my class is on-line, I don't care if students are late.

But it's counterproductive to lambaste a student coming in late. It disturbs things even more. I suspect very little got done class-wise in the minutes after this Professors remark. I think you have better success with a carrot - like a quiz first thing that you can't make up.

If I were a student coming in late, and a professor laid into me, I think a more effective strategy would be a Whatever and an eye-roll. Unless this guy is a real a-hole, she's just looking like she can't stick up for herself.

There's a lot of this story that I don't know, so my off-the-top-of-my-head reaction might be completely wrong.

Fen, as usual, you base your assumption on a single comment. None of the others even mention his political-leanings, which most likely means he keeps them out of the classroom (as he should). Do you even have a life...or a job for that matter? Besides the seemingly endless stream of comments from you which are completely devoid of intelligence, you biases scream ignorance. Please, stop watching Fox News...I know it's tough, but Glenn Beck really doesn't have all the answers

Good find. Not definitive or anything, but it certainly points one way.Anyway, if the guy turns out to be a Lib, his politics won't matter. He'll be "troubled" or "seeking help" and then the story will just disappear.

One of the peculiar things about this story is that the student and her friends were not late. They were on time, but apparently this guy starts his class 15 minutes early when he is showing films. According to the student, that fact is not in the syllabus.

I've been over to Wattier's faculty page. While his scholarship that I skimmed through seems pretty basic, straight forward (if very dry) academic political science analysis, his association with horses and a couple of other minor factors make me betting he's more likely to lean politically more to the right. Of course a right-leaning person within academia would be considered a socialist in every other context...

Unless this guy is a real a-hole, she's just looking like she can't stick up for herself.

The guy is an a-hole. His clarification of his statement outlines his theory that black students like to show up late because slaves used to show up late or work slowly as a form of protest against their masters.

Whether or not you agree with Judge Roberts views on discrimination, his line that "The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race" is a piece of class-A sophistry.

He's responding to school districts' professed desire to reduce de facto segregation in schools, which they consider to be a form of racial discrimination. That's the "discrimination on the basis of race" in the first part of the sentence. His response is that the way for the school districts to address their concerns is to end affirmative action; that's the "discriminating on the basis of race" in the second part of the sentence. So literally what he's saying is that the way to end de facto segregation is to end affirmative action, which is obviously not true.

What he means is that, in his view, de facto school segregation is that not racial discrimination but affirmative action is, so school districts are not allowed to use affirmative action to address de facto segregation. A perfectly respectable point of view. But his line buries this real disagreement in clever rhetoric, magically makig the question of de facto segregation disappear and completely obscuring the issue.

The guy is an a-hole. His clarification of his statement outlines his theory that black students like to show up late because slaves used to show up late or work slowly as a form of protest against their masters.

In some circles, this would be attributed to a sense of humor, which Triangle man doesn't seem to have.

Humor is not allowed in relation to hyper-sensitive blacks. We must always bow down and kiss the asses of hyper-sensitive blacks.

You haven't "beaten" me at anything. Still, I am going to go ahead and assume you have no job since you fail to address that. It actually is quite relevant that only one comment mentioned his leanings, especially because there are over 10 pages of comments. It leads me to believe it was some PO'd student who threw random political leanings in there on a whim. Without actual proof, it's nothing.

And here's my random, unfounded accusation meant to instigate: I bet you're also in favor of allowing citizens of a state to impose term limits on their [federal] Congressmen and Senators, right? I'm referring to how many times they can be reelected.

De facto segregation? Try the ridiculous quota-based bussing programs and what they do to destroy school systems everywhere.Stop projecting "Racism" onto everything and think clearly for a second. Nearly every person who lives in Wisconsin has chosen racial segregation as a lifestyle. How much the dearth of diversity weighs on their decision to remain there is a matter for their own consciences. They are most certainly not all racists, are they?

The remark, which isn't quoted in the article, had something to do with slaves being whipped for being late. That may sound like the outrageous remark of someone who is saying that the student ought to be whipped like a slave because she is black and late, but the professor would need to be crazy to say that, even if he was a big racist.

The most rational guess about why something like that was said is that the professor meant that black people have longstanding, justified grievances reaching back into slavery times and these grievances have given rise to a justified resistance to attributes of white culture that resonate with the long history of racial segregation. He might have been making a friendly witticism to the effect that as a white person he accepts the student's protest against white culture that still owes reparations for slavery. I'm not saying that isn't stupid. I'm only trying to understand how a professor could say something so stupid. He's not stupid but he said something that is really stupid. It's a puzzle to figure out what was in his head. That's my guess.

In a broader context, does it really matter what his political leanings are? Only a dumbkopf would believe that only racists exist on the right. The Obama campaign made great hay out of painting Geraldine Ferarro and Bill Clinton as racists and I don't recall seeing those two at any CPAC rallies.

Regardless of who said it, this is, for once, actually a racist statement. It is insulting to imply that someone is like a slave, or late or, lazy because of the color of their skin. It's the content of her character that made her late... or traffic jams caused by freakin slow driving Asians.

As a minority myself, I've dealt with/seen/experienced racism from the Left and from the Right. It my own personal experiences, it has mostly been from the left in the past decade or so.

"Racism" is not the purview of only one side, but some of the most vile, nasty, and hateful things I've experienced have been from those on the left because I disagree with them. If you are a minority who disagrees with the Leftist ideology, it gets bad. Real bad.

...but the professor would need to be crazy to say that, even if he was a big racist.

I don't know professor. I had some pretty crazy professors when I was in college. One in particular seemed to take great delight in disparaging certain ethnic groups. I distinctly recall one kid of Serbian descent who was roundly criticized on day in class to the point the guy told him to knock it off. The professor in question remarked that 'in the real world you're going to have to get used to that kind of criticism from people' to which he responded, 'in the real world I would have kicked your ass all over the street.'

Of course tenure protected that professor from any adverse actions whereas the student received a visit from campus security for his 'implied threat' (this was in 1989). Its not hard to imagine the kind of envrionment that creates when profs think they can just say anything.

Who gives a fuck if the professor is a leftist or rightist? The fact is that he was an asshole for saying that. He should be criticized for what he said regardless of whether he leans Dem or Rep.

It's stupid to fall into the trap of trying to blame one side or the other for this. This is an individual being a jerk. It's nothing more than stupid knee-jerking to try to pin blame for that on his political leanings in the absence of knowing what those leanings are. Bravo to one of the other commenters responding to that first idiot:"Again, your line of thinking is consistant with that of racial bigotry. You've simply swapped out labels to make your hatred and intolerance more palatable. "

We saw a similar incorrect rush to judgment here in Tucson. A firefighter refused to go to the shootings at the Giffords event. Right-wing nut, right? Nope. He voted for Giffords and was a registered Democrat. People do strange things for reasons outside of the tired red/blue trope.

2/22/11 10:00 AM "I'm a Shaaaaark said... As a minority myself, I've dealt with/seen/experienced racism from the Left and from the Right. It my own personal experiences, it has mostly been from the left in the past decade or so.

"Racism" is not the purview of only one side, but some of the most vile, nasty, and hateful things I've experienced have been from those on the left because I disagree with them. If you are a minority who disagrees with the Leftist ideology, it gets bad. Real bad."

I hear you. I've seen the same thing occur myself. Thankfully not to me personally, but I've still seen it happen to others.

"bagoh20 said... Regardless of who said it, this is, for once, actually a racist statement. It is insulting to imply that someone is like a slave, or late or, lazy because of the color of their skin. It's the content of her character that made her late... or traffic jams caused by freakin slow driving Asians."

Piss off, you Asian driver hater. I drive fast... and cause traffic jams by my endless weaving in and out of lanes, causing cars to come to a screeching halt sideways in the street. ;) :D

(For the record, the response to bagoh was a joke. A joke. Waiting for the clueless to chime in and not understand that 1. I'm Asian myself and 2. I was posting a joke. God knows it'll happen at some point...)

The Lefties like to point the finger of racism at the Right, but, over the last decade, we've seen some images worthy of Julius Schleicher in terms of odious stereotyping come out of the mouths of Leftists concerning black people - Condi Rice, Clarence Thomas, and, most recently, Herman Cain.

Of course, we've seen the same sort of thing directed at women.

Those of us Althouse Hillbillies love to invok the specter of projection on the Left, but, aside from the polemical advantages, it seems a valid charge.

PS Just because the school is in a Conservative area has nothing to do with the political bent of the Prof. Some of the farthest-Left women imaginable teach at Bryn Mawr College, in the middle of a fairly sedate and Conservative area west of Philadelphia.

Wow Fen, your inability to address my comments tells me that you really ARE unemployed. Not surprising, although I bet you love collecting those unemployment checks. Oh, the hypocrisy...

Also, throwing this [random] question out again: I bet you're also in favor of allowing citizens of a state's citizens to vote to impose term limits on their [federal] Congressmen and Senators, right? I'm referring to how many times they can be reelected.

No Libtard. Its simply that my work life is none of your business. I posted my vocation here some years ago and it led to all sorts of mischief from the "tolerant" Left (I also got to bang Maureen, which was kinda cool).

But I'm flattered that you want to stalk me through the thread. I must have really touched a sore spot. Please continue to rant away - I find libtard desperation and rage to be delicious.

Unfortunately, "professional commenter" is not an actual 'vocation.' I really hate to break it to you...must come as a shocker. And Libtard? Really? You're about as mature as a three year old, which isn't surprising.

Regardless, I pose my question again: I bet you're also in favor of allowing citizens of a state's citizens to vote to impose term limits on their [federal] Congressmen and Senators, right? I'm referring to how many times they can be reelected.

Regardless, I pose my question again: I bet you're also in favor of allowing citizens of a state's citizens to vote to impose term limits on their [federal] Congressmen and Senators, right? I'm referring to how many times they can be reelected.

I'm in favor of a constitutional amendment limiting terms of federal legislators, because not everyone has the character of Cincinnatus.

Rephrasing (correctly): I bet you're also in favor of allowing a state's citizens to vote to impose term limits on their [federal] Congressmen and Senators, right? I'm referring to how many times they can be reelected.

This question is probably relevant to a select few (AA just may be one of them), although I am quite interested in your answer.

It doesn't matter that the commenter had no factual basis to say that the professor is "undoubtedly" a Republican/Tea Partier.

The point is to leave readers with that impression whether it's true or not. We've seen the tactic used repeatedly since the Tea Party came on the scene. Loughner in Tucson, Amy Bishop in Alabama, the IRS plane crasher, the Pentagon shooter, etc. were all initially labeled either right-wingers or influenced by right- wing rhetoric by the leftist blogsphere. Once the smear is out there, the damage is done. The left will NEVER apologize or retract the false smear. It's how they roll.

AF says Chief Justice Roberts is quilty of sophistry. Not really. Roberts is saying that if you want to stop all racial discrimination then you stop all racial discrinination.

CJ Roberts is not sympathetic with the notion that some racial discrimination is good if the motive behind it is good.

The only sophistry here is on the part of those true believers who deny affirmative action requires racial discrimination. Their position would be more coherent if they simply argued that some racial discrimination is a good thing and that it is not a good thing to stop all discrimination.

Faulkner said that you could not expect black people to have any respect for private property because they were at one time private property. Was this the shrewd observation of a great writer or an ugly remark by a white southerner?....Racist remarks are those remarks that support or incite racism. This sounds more like a dumb joke that fell flat than the hoisting of a fiery cross. Cannot our tolerance also include not only those of different races and religions but those with a different sense of humor.

When your first post refers to someone as Ms. Insanity why do you later lecture others on immaturity? Does your vast experience as a poseur make your little jibes cute rather than merely immature? Or are you just a typical asshole lefty for whom standards only apply to others?

Left wing. I find libbers much more likely to blurt emotionally; besides, most professors in academia are liberals and if they aren't when they are hired, they certainly act that way based on the speech codes that are often present.

The 'shiny happy' people meme was alive and well when I graduated from college in the 80's and I believe it to be worse now.

@ deborah There was a similar story within the last year, or so. The upshot was that the teacher was making an in-joke with the black girls, but they did not take it that way.

I'm inclined to think that is what he was doing, making an inside joke (I'm with you on the same page. See? I can make a slave joke!) Forgetting that the ability to make jokes (except about wing nuts) has been taken off the table by lefties to the poinht that it's off *their* table too. At least according to this student.

Allen likely says that because his experience is that too many blacks view every slight through a racial prism. They bring race into every confrontation.

I've had similar experiences. Walking behind 3 black men toward a 7-11, watching them because I wanted to get around them without seeming impolite, having one turn on me and yell "what are YOU looking at!". Yes, I made the grave error of looking a black man in the eye...

So yes. In this PCBS climate, if you don't want racial strife, its often wise to simply avoid them. It helps if you are perceptive enough to pick out those who have been carrying a racial chip on their shoulder.

Of course, your experience depends on what part of the country you are in. While I was in the Marines, the culture was that skin color was as irrelevant as hair color. Its too bad that hasn't yet translated to the civilian world.

Not that I expect a race-mongering whore like you to understand, Jeremy. You and your kind thrive on keeping racial wounds open and bleeding.

@AF I don't see how a serious argument can be made that race-based admissions don't constitute racial discrimination. Do you think discrimination is an epithet rather than an actual word with an actual meaning?

Similarly, de facto segregation based on race is clearly not itself discrimination (by whom?), though it could be a result of discrimination.

I think it's possible that affirmative action racial discrimination can offset more racial discrimination than it applies. For example, if I were running a large company and wanted the best employees, and my job interviews had (for some reason) to be conducted by a sheriff from 1930 Mississippi who, aside from his racism, is a decent judge of potential employees, I'd be inclined to give him strict quotas to fill -- "hire the best n black applicants and the best k nonblack applicants." In this case, I'm requiring discrimination, but I'm likely to get a better collection of employees than if I say "hire the best n+k applicants," which would get be the best n+k non-black applicants.

I don't think it's often the case, though, that institutions that require racial discrimination are offsetting greater racial discrimination. The people who oversaw the hiring decisions of sheriffs in Mississippi in 1930 were not generally colorblind themselves. In modern America, especially in academia, affirmative action based on race is more likely to accustom people to consider it acceptable to discriminate based on race.

@Fen, if the prof actually was upset that Kerry was going to lose, that's a good indicator of his leanings, though he could be an anti-war libertarian. But if that's just one comment by one student, that could have been the student's assumption of why he's upset, or just a student with a grudge making things up.

What a surprise, AA being the biased, unreasonable person that she is immediately moves to pin this guy as a lefty.

Indeed, and AA's (5) talkin' pts. are laughable at best ...

>

Do you even have a life...or a job for that matter?

Ann pays Fen to post at her site 24/7 as it's a win/win for conservatives!

Unfortunately, "professional commenter" is not an actual 'vocation.'

Too funny!

>

And Ann is wayyy too analytical as she is totally fixated on race as her absurd assertions er opinions indicate. Interesting, as a rule, it's always conservatives who bring up race in a thread even though they swear on a stack of Bibles it's always liberals. Whatever the hell Ann claims to be politically on any particular day notwithstanding, depending on her agenda ...

Yea, not a lot of subtlety, grey area when it comes to bigotry/racism!

btw, there are bigots everywhere, Maine, Florida, NY, TX, ND, AK, CA etc. as racism knows no bounds. But on the bright side ~ many former racists/bigots overcame their bigotry in NC, VA, IN, FL, OH, PA, MI which was probably passed down to them from their parents/heritage in 2008 and voted for Barack Hussein Obama to be the 44th President of the United States of America!

They're under the beds, in closets, just every where. When they are not openly displaying their racism, they talk in a special code so no one but other racists can recognize them. The most brazen of them openly the policies of BHO and the Democrat Party.

because (she claimed) their culture had a different attitude toward time

One of the cogs in the gears that will eventually grind multiculturalism into dust before multiculturalism does it to the rest of society. That VP was doing those kids a horrible disservice. Nobody in the private sector is going to excuse them along those lines when they grow up. She's setting them up for unnecessary angst and practicing the worst sort of lowered expectations discrimination.

Without more to go on, Ann's probably right. About a decade after I graduated from public high school in Illinois, the school board added a vice principal for racial matters (I don't know what her formal title was).

According to stories I heard from teachers there, the African American vice principal did indeed excuse African American students for being late because (she claimed) their culture had a different attitude toward time.

This hard-left administrator lasted only a year, but by her consistently advocating differential application of rules, she did plenty of damage to race relations.

Rephrasing (correctly): I bet you're also in favor of allowing a state's citizens to vote to impose term limits on their [federal] Congressmen and Senators, right? I'm referring to how many times they can be reelected.

I’m pretty sure Arkansas did vote that way a number of years ago and it got thrown out by the courts.

Stupid remark - agreed - but why was the guy "forced to resign"? He's got to lose his livelihood over it? That's wrong.

My black friends sent this to me right after it happened and I didn't think shit of it. (I looked him up and think the guy is a cowboy liberal, BTW) My friends sent this to me saying, "See? See?" like I was going to read the remark, slap my forehead, and say, "Oh, riiight" and change my thoughts on race.

People go where the jobs are ie over the past 30/40 years many Ohioans have relocated to NC, SC, FL, NM, AZ as the Rubber industry moved South and many manufacturing jobs relocated to other states and overseas.

Good luck to Kasich shitting some new jobs, but like Christie he will benefit from many folk leaving both states as re: to unemployment.

Of course that's what McWhorter and Loury are talking about. If they were to examine the politics of the guy who made the comment, they'd have to concede that they are committed to a party and a political ideology that is racist. That would make them look at history and their Republican roots, not something they really want to deal with.

After reading the prof's comment, a part of me is thinking that there is a way that it could be taken for not being racist. I mean...I'd say something like that to my niece, not thinking of any racial tones--my meaning like, "Why the hell are you so late? Two hundred years ago I could have beaten you for this." No racial overtones involved.

However, it was still unwise, given that people could take it a certain way (since, apparently, we're all far from color blindness).

Well I went to Murray State and minored in poli sci, and I had Wattier for several classes. I'd say he was probably in the middle politically in that department. Perhaps a Republican (although probably not in registration, as that area remains yellow dog territory), but surely no tea partier. He was always, shall we say, prickly, but I was surprised when I heard the story.

As for a couple of the other points:

As to the 2002 congressional campaign donations, it probably had a lot to do with the Dem candidate being the son of the university president.

MSU faculty are more conservative that UW Madison I'm sure, but far more liberal than western Kentucky generally.

And Murray's not dry anymore. It got restaurant sales about a decade ago.